DECATUR, AL. - State Rep. Sue Schmitz, D-Toney, testified this afternoon that the time cards prosecutors have made so much of in her fraud trial here - the ones with all "8s" showing hours worked each day - are that way because she was ordered to fill them out that way.

Schmitz is charged with fraud for allegedly taking pay from a federally funded teen-mentoring program and not working the hours she claims. She did not testify during her first trial last year, which ended in a deadlocked jury, but took the stand after lunch today in a surprise move. She is expected to remain on the stand at least through the end of the day.

Schmitz testified she had been approved to work flex-time and divide her hours between the Legislature and her job, but the business manager of the youth program called her to the office twice to order time card revisions.

"She said I needed more hours on there than what I had listed...," Schmitz testified. "She said everyone put down eight hours and that was what I was to do on a daily basis."

Schmitz also said the business manager, Barbara Creel, gave her a calendar showing how many hours she was supposed to work each month and "said I had to total up all my hours to come up to that total."

"I simply tried to redo them the way she said," Schmitz said, although she testified that she did tell her state boss, Ed Earnest, that she didn't like it.

"'Ed, this bothers me,'" Schmitz said she told Earnest. "I was really distraught about this."

Earnest, who has since died, told her just to do it, Schmitz testified, and so she did.